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HENRY STUART WAS THE SECOND of the eight children born to the Earl and Countess of Lennox, and was named after his august godfather, King Henry VIII, and for an older brother who had died in infancy.1 The name Darnley came from one of the Lennox estates near Glasgow: Lord Darnley was the courtesy title borne by the eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, according to English usage; in Scotland, Darnley would have been styled the Master of Lennox.
There is conflicting evidence for his date of birth, which is traditionally given as 7 December 1545, yet the continuator of Knox’s history states that he was not yet twenty-one at the time of his death in February 1567, and in March 1566, Queen Mary’s own messenger to the Cardinal of Lorraine stated that Darnley was then nineteen.2 It is likely, therefore, that he had been born on 7 December 1546.
Darnley first saw the light of day, and spent most of his youth, at his parents’ Yorkshire seat, Temple Newsham House, near Leeds, a mansion dating from about 1520, which had been given by Henry VIII to the Lennoxes at the time of their marriage. The house has been much altered since then, but some diapered Tudor brickwork survives on the west front, where the great chamber and main apartments were probably sited in Darnley’s day. The rest of the house dates mainly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An inventory of 1565 refers to “Lord Darnley’s Chamber,” in which there were tapestries with scenes of hunting and hawking and “one bedstead with gilt posts”; it also reveals that a portrait of Darnley hung in the great chamber alongside others depicting Henry VIII, Mary I, Philip of Spain and the Countess of Lennox.3
Of all the children born to the Lennoxes, only two, Henry and Charles (who was born c. 1555/6), survived infancy,4 therefore Darnley was especially precious to his parents, both of whom doted on him, spoiled him and invested their dynastic hopes in him. Near in blood to the sovereigns of England and Scotland, he was given a Renaissance education befitting a royal prince, and grew up to be just as ambitious as his mother and father, and believing that he was destined for a crown.
Darnley was reared in England as a Roman Catholic. In 1554, aged about eight, he wrote a courteous letter to Mary I, declaring that he wished his “tender years” had not prevented him from fighting against her rebels, and asking her to accept “a little plot of my own planning” called “Utopia Nova.” For his pains, the Queen rewarded him with a gold chain, for which he sent a charming note of thanks. The Lennoxes had rather hoped that she would name Darnley her heir, but were destined to be disappointed.
In 1559, after the Lennoxes had fallen from favour on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Darnley was sent to France to complete his education, and was much praised there for his accomplishments. At some stage, he is said to have translated the works of the classical Roman author Valerius Maximus from Latin into English.
All accounts agree that Darnley was outstandingly good looking. According to Castelnau, it was “not possible to see a more beautiful prince,”5 while Buchanan called Darnley “the most handsome of our time.” He was certainly tall; analysis of a femur alleged on good grounds to be his (now in the museum of the Royal College of Physicians) suggests that his height was between 6’1’’ and 6’3’’,6 which was exceptional in an age in which the average man’s height was at most 5’6’’, and made him a fitting match for the Queen of Scots, who was herself about six feet tall. Darnley had a slim, strong athletic physique, honed by the sports in which he excelled. He had cropped fair curly hair and a clean-shaven and handsome, if rather effeminate, face; later, he grew a short beard and moustache.
Darnley was accomplished in all the traditional aristocratic pursuits. He was a gifted lute player, a good dancer, a poet and a man of letters who was proficient in Latin and French,7 and a keen and expert sportsman, skilled at swordplay, shooting, horsemanship, hunting, hawking, tennis, golf and pell-mell (croquet). He had a certain charm, was well versed in courtly manners, and was described by Randolph as “a fair, jolly young man.”8 “He could speak and write well, and was bountiful and liberal enough.”9 Indeed, he seemed “an amiable youth,”10 and his courtesy and his good looks invariably made a favourable impression on those who met him.11
Yet there was another side to Darnley, the side that was only revealed when he was bored or thwarted, and to which his loving parents were blind. For beneath the courtly veneer, he was spoilt, wilful, petulant, immature and, at his worst, grossly uncouth. And for all his careful education, he lacked intelligence, depth and sound judgement. Unreliable and unstable, with a quick, violent temper, he was “haughty, proud and so very weak in mind as to be a prey to all that came about him. He was inconstant, credulous and facile, unable to abide by any resolutions, capable to be imposed upon by designing men, and could conceal no secret, let it be either to his own welfare or detriment.”12 His kinsman Morton said of him that “he was such a bairn that there was nothing told him but he would reveal it,” while Melville states that he told everything to his servants, “who were not all honest.”
Throughout his adult life, Darnley made enemies not only because of his arrogance and treachery, but also through his innate selfishness, stupidity and sheer tactlessness, he being “naturally of a very insolent disposition.”13 To those who opposed him, he could be ruthless, vengeful and vicious. His expenditure on clothes shows him to have been inordinately vain, and he was also something of a gourmet. He was sexually promiscuous, “much addicted to base and unmanly pleasures”14 and excessively given to drink. His friends were mostly young men who exerted a bad influence over him. All things considered, it is hard to find much to say in extenuation, except that he was young and inexperienced, and lacked “good counsel.”15 And when illness and adversity eventually forced him to grow up, acknowledge his shortcomings and try to reform, it was by then far too late.
Such was the young man who arrived in Scotland in February 1565 to woo the unsuspecting Queen of Scots.